Windows XP slowdown

Hello,

I have a bunch of WinXPSP3 machines still in my district and with the new crop of crap out there we cannot be left without antivirus. When I install the Avast client on our machines and then restart it slows them down quite a bit.

I know WinXP is behind the times, etc…But for now it is all we have. Any thoughts on how to speed up the machine with the client from AEA install of Avast for Schools? We need something and even thought about installing the consumer version and seeing what happens but thought I would find out anyone that has any ideas how to speed up the client that is available for it now.

Any help would be appreciated… we are in our summer here and have time to work on them and get them safe and working…

Upgrade the hardware.

I would love to, but may have to do that we are currently running them with 1 gig of ram. Maybe upgrading to 3 gigs will help, but a totally new machine…welll being a school district that would be a heafty price tag to do that many machines.

The memory may be a way to go but was wondering what if anything could I turn off when installing that wont run…

Thanks for the reply

On our XP machines, we ONLY have the file shield running. Every other shield is turned off. You could also turn off the ‘on-access scanning’ and just leave the scheduled scans to take care of everything. But with every piece you turn off, you open more security holes. At the end of the day, you’re running on outdated machines with outdated software and hardware.

“tweak” windows for optimal performance.
Don’t let thing start when there is no need for it.
Perhaps lower the screen-resolution also.

I have many XP clients that our clients use everyday with AEA and ASOA. As Vincent Stated, turning off all shields except for the file shield will give the smallest possible footprint for the client install. With 1GB of RAM, every megabyte will be a precious resource!

Well it looks like I Will have to turn it all off except for the file scanning. Unless we can find money to at least upgrade the memory, that is our only option. Thank you all for your thoughts and things that we can do to make it run better. I do appreciate the input.